{"id":94108,"date":"2026-01-08T21:19:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T21:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/94108\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T21:19:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T21:19:08","slug":"ny-police-helicopter-forced-into-emergency-landing-after-teen-shines-laser-into-pilots-eyes-cops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/94108\/","title":{"rendered":"NY police helicopter forced into emergency landing after teen shines laser into pilots’ eyes: cops"},"content":{"rendered":"

An upstate 15-year-old boy forced a New York State Police chopper to make quick emergency maneuvers over Buffalo when the youth shined a green laser into the pilots\u2019 eyes that could\u2019ve sparked a mid-air disaster, authorities revealed Thursday.<\/p>\n

The targeted helicopter fled from the area when the beam repeatedly hit the operators in the face sometime around 8:15 p.m., state police said.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"NewA New York State Police chopper, similar to this, was targeted in October with a green laser. New York State Police \/ Facebook<\/p>\n

The pilots\u2019 night goggles could not protect them from the laser and they were forced to abruptly change direction so they would not be blinded as they flew near Ashley and Person streets, according to state police. <\/p>\n

The beam caused spotting in the officers\u2019 vision that was bad enough they couldn\u2019t see their gauges, though they had no permanent harm.<\/p>\n

The Buffalo boy was arrested and charged Wednesday with first-degree directing a laser at an aircraft \u2013 a felony.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe green laser, similar to this stock image, was allegedly used by a Buffalo teen. Svetliy \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

The 15-year-old was issued an appearance ticket for Family Court and referred to Erie County Probation, police said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York State Police stress shining a laser at an aircraft is dangerous, potentially causing temporary blindness, disorientation to pilots, risking collisions and putting the community in jeopardy,\u201d state police said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An upstate 15-year-old boy forced a New York State Police chopper to make quick emergency maneuvers over Buffalo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4243,18491,57,9,11,10,49,51,50,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-94108","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-buffalo-new-york","9":"tag-helicopters","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-new-york-state","15":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","16":"tag-new-york-state-news","17":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}